


Born to Die

by rillrill



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-23
Updated: 2012-03-23
Packaged: 2017-11-02 10:39:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rillrill/pseuds/rillrill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She isn’t an idiot. She knows by now that her allure is her primary weapon in this fight. Be beautiful, be sultry, make the audience fall in love. It’s not love, though. It’s lust. If she can make the entire nation of Panem want her, she stands a sliver of a chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Born to Die

**Author's Note:**

> What is this ridiculousness? I don’t think this pairing is even hinted at anywhere in the books, but apparently I’m writing it anyway. Here’s my thing about the books: yes, they’re really great, and I like them a lot, but I’m more interested in the rest of the world Collins created. And frankly, out of all the tributes from the first book, the Careers are the most fascinating to me. So now this thing exists and I make no apologies! none!

She is a victor’s child. It’s hardly a distinction in District One. Seemingly half the children at the Academy come from winning stock – they all seem to have a parent or a grandparent or an older sibling, even a cousin, who has won. It seems like an inordinate amount for only 74 games and less than half of those wins going to their District, but, well, the winners tend to get around. 

Her father won the 51st Games and she was born a few years after that. Her parents never married; her mother wasn’t wealthy. Mother was secretive about her occupation and only years later, long after entering the Academy, did Glimmer realize that her mother was a whore.

But still, she is a victor’s child. When there is little else to hold onto, she has this.

She was bred to win.

 

+

 

The Academy is not a home. It works like this, see: in first grade, the Appraisers start showing up at the public schools. They watch. They make lists of the strongest, the quickest, the most clever students. They choose 200 from the entire District. To be chosen is an honor – a few parents decline to send their children, but most understand that to attend the Academy is to have a chance at bringing the ultimate glory to their District. Almost all go.

Each year, more and more are cut from their ranks. Some drop out willingly. Some have accidents; are injured too badly to continue. It’s an occupational hazard. Stray arrows, knives, spears… all that metal flying around, you’re bound to get some collateral damage. A few go crazy – it’s rare, but not unheard-of. At 17, only ten remain. Five girls; five boys. These are the ten who will compete to become that year’s Volunteer.

And then, finally, there are two.

 

+

 

She watches Gloss go to the Games and win, and during his victory tour, all she can think about is her own. The subsequent year, she watches Cashmere go through the same routine – publicity, domination, homecoming, and her yearning to do the same, to win, grows even stronger. She’s old enough now to understand the gravity of the situation, of course. If she were in a different district, one where there are no volunteers, her name would be in the lottery twice. But there’s no element of chance at play here. Nothing is left up to fate. If she goes to the Games, it will be completely premeditated, of her own doing, and done with the belief that she not only can win, but she will win.

She got her mother’s looks. She got her father’s lust for blood.

 

+

 

When she is 15, she is injured at the Academy, during the last week of spring eliminations. A boy throws an axe. She dodges the blade, but the handle hits her squarely in the chest. She can hear the crack of bone as she feels her collarbone break in two.

This should be the end of her time at the Academy. Somehow, miraculously, she makes the cut – a girl in her year makes a silly mistake during a fight, feints left when she should have really trusted her instinct and gone right. She takes a dart to the eye for her trouble.

When she returns in late summer, the break in her bone has healed. And she is stronger than ever.

 

+

 

By the time she is 17, Glimmer can throw knives with a 95% rate of accuracy. But she can barely write a simple sentence.

She knows seven ways to kill a fully grown man using only her bare hands. But she can’t read a map.

She can hit a moving target with a spear while on the run herself. But she doesn’t know her own birthday.

She hasn’t seen her mother since she turned 16.

 

+

 

The girls in her year don’t matter. She keeps an eye on them, of course, but only for the sake of maintaining her own place atop the hierarchy. They are good at what they do. She is the best.

The boys are the ones who matter. The boys are the ones she must pay attention to, because ultimately, she will have to kill one of them. It comes as a surprise how little this troubles her. In this world, death is simply something to be faced with pragmatism, both causing it and experiencing it. There is no greatness without risk. 

The boys are the ones who matter, and for this reason, she watches them like a hawk. Flash. Marvel. Burnish. Frill. Sheen. She can imagine facing off against any of them, snapping their necks while they sleep or driving a hatchet into their backs. She acts friendly around them, as they do her, but inwardly, she asks herself – what’s the point? Everyone knows why they’re here. It’s no use pretending. Any of them could be her opponent. One of them will.

The boys are of no use to her. She watches them. 

 

+

 

And then it’s their year. There’s a final scrimmage, a mock battle – no real weapons allowed, just brute force and cleverness, as the District would really rather deliver its tribute to the Capitol in one piece. The mentors descend upon the Academy like locusts and watch, silent, nodding as one student after another exits the game.

Finally there are two.

The Reaping is a blur. Their escort from the Capitol makes a speech, tells them all how honorable the children of their district are. And then he asks if there are any volunteers.

The crowd parts and there they are, standing arrogant and tall, the pride of their District. As they’re marched to the stage, the escort asks their names, and they speak proudly into the microphone. “Glimmer,” she says, flashing a smile at the adoring audience and wiggling her fingers in a flirtatious wave. As the crowd applauds, she flips her hair, giggles, and they eat it up.

A thought flits across her mind – what if this is why she’s here? Not for her skill in the arena, but for her other attributes, her body, her ability to giggle and flirt and be both innocent and sultry on cue? This isn’t who she is. She can do two things: be pretty and girlish, and kill people. Not everyone else at the Academy had both of those skills. There were stronger fighters, born winners in her class, but they had less charisma than a bag of flour. 

The thought crosses her mind, and for the first time, she realizes that despite all her gifts, her body and the things she can do with it, she may lose.

 

+

 

Due to the sheer volume of winners from District One, their mentors rotate every year, two per game, one per tribute. No one knows who the mentors will be on a given year until they show up. She remembers a year that both oldest living District One winners ended up as the mentors; that was a bad year. She hopes they’ll get someone young.

The man and woman who accompany them to the Capitol are not the biggest disappointment imaginable. The man’s name is Brass, and he is in his fifties, but still strong as an ox. Glimmer can’t remember seeing his Games replayed before, but at the Academy, they were instructed to commit all 73 years of winning kills to memory, and she recalls that he finished off his final opponent with a mace to the side of the head. He will be Marvel’s mentor. It’s a perfect fit.

The woman’s name is Gossamer, and she is much younger, in her late twenties. Her Games were some of the first Glimmer remembers watching with an itch to get into the arena herself. Gossamer is crazy. She was a disappointment to the District during the Games and made it to the final two practically by default. That was the year the boy from One died during the countdown, was just a bit too eager to run to the Cornucopia and the land mines blasted him to pieces. The girl from One was covered with blood before the gong even sounded, and instead of running into the fray, she headed into the mountainous arena, waited out most of the deaths in the hills, and returned shaking with dehydration, yet lucid enough to snap a few necks and shoot a few arrows and be crowned the winner. Now she’s a mess, eyes darting around the room relentlessly, her sentences full of pauses and stutters. This is her first year as a mentor and Glimmer knows in an instance, as she looks over the woman responsible for her fate, that she is never going home.

 

+

 

When the boy from District 2 first lays eyes on her, he snorts and bites out the words, “District One. Of course.”

His name is Cato. He’s by far the strongest in the room, moreso than Marvel, who’d look downright diminutive beside him were he not trying so hard to puff himself up and make himself seem larger than life. He is a threat, perhaps the most immediate one in the room, and she knows she should pay attention to his weaknesses. But her arrogance wins out, and she can’t help showing off.

When she knows he’s watching, she sends a spear straight into the center of a target. Then she flashes a dazzling smile in his direction and heads to the knife throwing station.

She can hear him mutter something else behind her back, but doesn’t falter in her stride.

 

+

 

For her interview with Caesar, her prep team confer among themselves before reassembling around her. Onyx, her stylist, arches a hot-pink eyebrow and looks her up and down. “Well,” he says. “We have two choices. We can attempt girlish and innocent – or we can go sexy.”

She knows without a moment’s hesitation that they’ll undoubtedly go sexy.

She isn’t an idiot. She knows by now that her allure is her primary weapon in this fight. Be beautiful, be sultry, make the audience fall in love. It’s not love, though. It’s lust. If she can make the entire nation of Panem want to fuck her, she stands a sliver of a chance. Her mother was a prostitute and now, so is she. There’s no difference, is there? Sex appeal will keep her alive.

The dress is utterly transparent under the lights. She hates it, hates the people who propped her up on this stage, completely displayed for Caesar, who keeps staring at her with that damn lecherous grin, and the entire nation to see. It’s degrading. Dehumanizing. But she’ll play along anyway, smiling brightly with gleaming eyes, because this is part of the game. The other tributes – the girls from Districts 4, 5, and 7; Clove, who she already regards as someone to be feared and allied with; and the girl from District 12 with the odd name, Cantiss or Catnip – the other girls look at her with derision, throwing poisonous glances her way as she walks offstage after the interview. “Slut,” someone spits as she walks by. She walks down the hall, head held high, not looking back. 

The boys, for their part, can’t pull their eyes away. They’re only human, after all.

 

+

 

(She doesn’t realize it now – won’t realize it until the tracker jacker poison has almost gripped her mind entirely – but she ceased to be a human the moment she walked onstage at the Reaping. Perhaps it was before that, even.)

 

+

 

When the gong goes off she charges into the fray and it’s as if some other force, some other Glimmer, has taken over her mind. She regains her bearings an hour later, in the forest with a bow and arrow, running in a pack.

It seems natural. It’s only human nature to hunt together, to join forces. It’s her and Marvel, Clove and Cato, the District 4 girl, whose name she learns is Abalone, and somewhere along the lines they’ve picked up the boy from District 12, Peeta. 

At night, they take turns standing guard while the others grab what little sleep they can. When she volunteers to take the midnight shift, she slides into the shadows, one of Clove’s throwing knives in hand. She runs the side of the cool metal blade over her hand, fingering the tip with a delicate touch, and weighs her chances. She could easily slit their throats now – silently, one after another, it wouldn’t take more than a minute to kill the bunch. But she weighs this course of action against having to square off against the rest of the competition on her own, and shakes her head, breathing deeply and plunging the knife into the cool earth below her. There will be time for that later. After the others are gone.

(Oh, please. As if the rest of them wouldn’t think of doing the same to her.)

 

+

 

She’s still awake when Cato stirs, shakes himself awake and sits bolt upright.

“No one’s here,” she whispers, holding the knife up and letting the artificial moonlight reflect off the blade. 

He nods and silently extricates himself from the sleeping arrangement, carrying himself surprisingly lightly for someone so muscular. He sits beside her, running a hand up her arm. “You know,” he says, “it’s a shame that someone’s going to have to kill you.”

She shrugs. “Not if I kill them first.” 

He laughs. It’s the longest conversation they’ve had since training. The moonlight glints off his teeth and she reminds herself that it’s fake. It’s all make-believe in the end, anyway. They’re actors, the beautiful and talented people, plucked from obscurity to put on a show. When he kisses her neck and wrenches open the fly on her pants, thrusts his hand inside, she gasps, tips her head back, and finds the camera. 

They’re still awake when the morning arrives. She picks leaves out of her hair and gathers her weapons as the rest of their pack rouses themselves.

 

+

 

When they follow the trail of smoke and light to the girl sitting by her fire alone, Cato swings his club back, but stops.

Almost imperceptibly, he glances at Glimmer. And he nods.

She can’t help relishing the girl’s scream. She was bred for this moment, after all.

 

+

 

They drop off to sleep under a tree. “Who wants to take the first watch?” asks Clove, yawning. “Cato, I’m pretty sure it’s your turn.”

“Fuck the first watch,” says Cato. “Glimmer can take it.”

She shrugs. The adrenaline from the last kill is still coursing through her body; she should have no trouble staying awake. “Sure, whatever.”

When she feels herself start to drop off, she surrenders to sleep. Nothing’s going to happen, she rationalizes as she curls onto one side, resting her head on a pile of leaves. They’ll be fine.

She jolts awake an hour later. But by then, it’s too late to run.

She was bred for this moment, anyway.


End file.
